A Memoir
by Tidal Waves
Summary: Remus looks back on his days as a Marauder and thinks about what made them who they were. From the beginning of it all to the very end and even beyond that, this was and is the Marauders.


**A Memoir**

They said that we were inseparable, and I guess that we thought that too. We did everything together. We had all the same classes, and we lived in the same room while we were at school. Sometimes we even shared our women, but that's another story for a very different day. We were the Marauders, and we were the very best of friends.

Some wondered how our group worked, because we were four very different people. We just seemed to mesh; our strengths and faults play off one another.

There was James, the leader of our group. It was never a conscious decision on any of our parts, but it worked, and he never lorded over us. He brought loads of energy, and quick thinking to the Marauders. He was always up for an adventure, and was quick to defend people that he liked from slander.

He wasn't always outgoing, however. At times he could be withdrawn and pensive, thinking about the future, or making plans that he never told to anyone, not even us.

Peter was the runt of the group, and even with his spiky blonde hair, he barely reached our chins. Many people, including most of the teachers, wondered why he hung out with us, because to the world he displayed a wimpish attitude, and most people thought that he was stupid. They were very wrong. Peter's true self came out around us, and we found him to be an excellent abstract thinker, able to determine all of the different possible outcomes of our various pranks that we played over the years.

Sirius . . . Sirius was himself. Hew was the heartbreaker of the group. The girls loved him and the boys wanted to be him. I'm pretty sure that he even had a few fan clubs kicking around. He was never with a girl for longer than a month the whole time we were at Hogwarts.

He was so carefree and hyper most of the time, but he would occasionally slip into a dark mood, especially after a run in with his Slytherin relatives, who always reminded him of his home life.

See, until he was sixteen, Sirius lived with his family, who were as pureblood fanatical as you can get, and majorly into the dark arts. His mother had even used the Cruciatus Curse on him when he came home from his first year of Hogwarts, because he had gone against everything that his family stood for when he had gotten himself sorted into Gryffindor.

Summer before 6th year, he decided tat he was put up wit enough crap from his so called "family" and went to live with James and his parents. He eventually bought himself a flat in Diagon Alley and never returned to his ancestral home again.

And then there was me. Remus Lupin. I was always the studious one, usually found with a book in hand. I sorted out most of the arguments between my peers, and I was nice, or at least passive, to most people. I also had a huge secret. I was a werewolf.

I was bitten when I was three by a wolf named Grayback, and I became a monster, or at least a monster for one night a month. I tried my best to hide it for most of my childhood from the few friends that I had because I knew that if they ever knew my secret they would never talk to me again.

Upon my arrival at Hogwarts I met three people who soon became my best friends. I knew that I had to be even more cautious than ever with my secret, because I really didn't want to lose these friends. I made excuses for my monthly disappearances, and they seemed to believe it, because they never asked me too many questions. But one day in third year, they confronted me, saying that they knew the truth of the matter. They didn't care!

Sot at was us, the Marauders. Because my friends didn't want me to suffer alone through my transformations, they became illegal animagi, and we became Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. We created the Marauder's Map, and we imprinted it with a shadow of ourselves that would insult those who weren't supposed to see it.

It was things like that that made it seem as if we would be together forever and after. We were still as close as ever. We stuck by one another as James fell in love, Sirius got a girl pregnant, Peter's mother died, and my parents were murdered my Lord Voldemort. Life after Hogwarts wasn't an obstacle for us. We all lived together in Sirius's flat, and we all went out to the pub at least once a week. One by one we got ourselves jobs, mine being undeniably harder to find due to my lycanthropy, but I finally found a little bookshop with an open-minded owner.

With the jobs came the cash, and soon James was out buying Lily an engagement ring. Several fights occurred in our apartment as we tried to decide who was going to be the best man at the wedding. Sirius finally won the right, and he gleefully prepared to take his place beside James on the big day.

Obviously, James moved out of the apartment, and we saw him a bit less than we used to. All four of us usually met up at lunch time, and most of the time, Lily came along as well. She quickly became one of the group, and it soon seemed that she had always been one of the Marauders.

A big change in all of our lives came when Dumbledore asked us all to become members of the Order of the Phoenix, a group that was dedicated to fighting the ever increasing threat that was Voldemort. Being members of the Order added a bit more stress to our lives, what with dangerous missions to gather intelligence. Even being a member was dangerous because we were openly opposing the Dark Lord, and he really didn't like opposition.

It was tough, but we all dealt and still managed to have our fun. James was certainly having fun, because we soon found out that Lily was pregnant. The happy couple had a baby boy that they named Harry James Potter. They were the happiest people on the planet after that, but Sirius came in a close second, because he was named Harry's godfather.

Too soon that happiness turned to fear because we found out that Lily and James were at the top of Voldemort's hit list. They, and their new little baby went into hiding, with Sirius as their secret keeper. And then, on October 31st, Voldemort himself arrived in Godric's Hollow. He murdered Lily and James, and he tried to murder Harry, but for some reason he failed to do so, and the curse rebounded on him. He was dead, or so we thought, but that is another story altogether.

The next little bit here I only found out a few years ago. See, Sirius was concerned that there was an intelligence breach in the Order, and that Voldemort would know that he was the secret keeper. He persuaded James and Lily to switch to Peter, whom no one would ever suspect.

But it turns out that Peter was the one who was passing information on to Voldemort, and when he was made the secret keeper, he went running to his master with the information. However, only Lily, James, Sirius, and Peter knew that the keeper had been switched at all, so all of us thought that Sirius was the one who had betrayed his best friends.

Sirius, who was the only one alive who knew the truth, went searching for Peter, who faked his own death and blamed it on his former friend. Sirius went to Azkaban without a trial. And there I was, thinking that Sirius, my best friend, had murdered my three other best friends.

I spent twelve years believing that, until Sirius broke out of Azkaban and I eventually heard the truth from him. It seems that Peter, who had transformed into a rat, was still alive. Sirius was not the one who had betrayed his friends.

I was glad to have my best friend back, for I had been alone for quite some time. But the happiness that I felt at his return didn't last for long. Sirius was murdered by his own cousin in the Department of Mysteries, less than two years after his return into my life.

And that leads me to today, here and now. James and Lily are long dead, and even though I still miss them terribly, it doesn't hurt me quite so much anymore. They still live on though, through their only son, Harry. He looks so much like James that it can hurt to look at him sometimes, and his eyes are such a perfect copy of Lily's that it can be scary. Sirius is still very recently dead, and that still hurts me. Peter, even if he is still alive, is totally dead to me.

The Marauders are no more. We've been whittled down, one by one, by that scumbag Voldemort. I miss out times together, and I often find myself wondering what life would be like if my friends were still here.

One day I'll join them, wherever it is that the dead go. I only hope that it won't be any time soon. You see, I have found someone new to live for, and she's calling to me from the bedroom. Obviously, I am leaving now.

-Moony


End file.
